Jolyon Palmer questions whether Fred Vasseur could handle Ferrari teammate title battle

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Lewis Hamilton has been through plenty of tight title races in his Formula 1 career, and that experience has Jolyon Palmer worried about how Fred Vasseur would handle things if Ferrari ever found themselves in an internal championship fight between the Briton and Charles Leclerc.

The arrival of Lewis Hamilton at Maranello ahead of the 2025 campaign arguably marked Ferrari’s strongest driver line-up since the days of Michael Schumacher, and their 2026-spec SF-26 has looked like a serious challenger in the current campaign.

Ferrari are still a few steps away from being seen as true title contenders, but F1 pundit Jolyon Palmer has raised concerns about how Fred Vasseur would handle things if Hamilton and Leclerc ended up fighting each other for the championship.

“We’ve seen it before with Nico Rosberg at Mercedes,” Palmer said on ‘The Wheeler Dealer Podcast’. “That was when Toto Wolff was relatively new into his job. He was still learning on the go.”

Why Palmer sees trouble ahead for Vasseur if Ferrari faces internal title battle

On a recent episode of the F1 Nation podcast, Palmer brought up an interesting question to his co-hosts, former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe and journalist Tom Clarkson. He asked which current driver pairing would be the toughest for a team principal to manage if they found themselves in an intra-team title fight.

Clarkson responded by pointing out that Hamilton has been involved in several teammate battles that didn’t end well, calling him a ‘common denominator’ in those situations.

“I’m not saying he’s dirty in any way,” Clarkson added, “but just that level of ferocious competitiveness, I think, would end up leading to trouble.”

After Hinchcliffe agreed with Clarkson’s assessment, Palmer weighed in further: “There’s a bit of ego there as well. There’s ego in everyone, but I think you’ve got to not be accepting second place.”